The word 'critical" has three meanings which are dangerous, important, and disapproving. The purpose of this blog is to examine important or over-looked cultural, political, artistic, or historical issues of our time. Also, this blog is intended to be educational.

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

The Ancient Temple Of Angkor Wat

There are two great complexes of ancient temples in
Southeast Asia, one at Bagan in Burma, the other at Angkor in Cambodia.

The temples of Angkor, crafted by the Khmer civilization
between 802 and 1220 AD, represent one of humankind's most astonishing
architectural achievements.

From Angkor the Khmer kings ruled over a vast domain,
which reached from Vietnam to China to the Bay of Bengal. The structures one
sees at Angkor today, more than 100 stone temples, are the surviving remains of
a grand religious, social and administrative metropolis whose other buildings -
palaces, public buildings, and houses - were built of wood and are long since
decayed and gone.

Conventional theories presume the lands where Angkor
stands were chosen as a settlement site because of their strategic military
position and agricultural potential. Other scholars however, believe the
geographical location of the Angkor complex and the arrangement of its temples
was based on a planet-spanning sacred geography from archaic times.

Using computer simulations it has been shown that the
ground plan of the Angkor complex – the terrestrial placement of its principal
temples - mirrors the stars in the constellation of Draco at the time of spring
equinox in 10,500 BC. While the date of this astronomical alignment is far
earlier than any known construction at Angkor, it appears that its purpose was
to architecturally mirror the heavens in order to assist in the harmonization
of the earth and the stars.

Both the layout of the Angkor temples and iconographic
nature of much its sculpture are also intended to indicate the celestial
phenomenon of the precession of the equinoxes and the slow transition from one
astrological age to another.

Angkor Wat on the Cambodian Flag

At the temple of Phnom Bakheng there are 108 surrounding
towers. The number 108, considered sacred in both Hindu and Buddhist
cosmologies, is the sum of 72 plus 36 (36 being ½ of 72). The number 72 is a
primary number in the sequence of numbers linked to the earth's axial
precession, which causes the apparent alteration in the position of the
constellations over the period of 25,920 years, or one degree every 72 years.
Another mysterious fact about the Angkor complex is its location 72 degrees of
longitude east of the Pyramids of Giza. The temples of Bakong, Prah Ko and Prei
Monli at Roluos, south of the main Angkor complex, are situated in relation to
each other in such a way that they mirror the three stars in the Corona
Borealis as they appeared at dawn on the spring equinox in 10,500 BC. It is
interesting to note that the Corona Borealis would not have been visible from
these temples during the 10th and 11th centuries when they were constructed.

Angkor Wat, built during the early years of the 12th
century by Suryavaram II, honors the Hindu god Vishnu and is a symbolic
representation of Hindu cosmology. Consisting of an enormous temple symbolizing
the mythic Mt. Meru, its five inter-nested rectangular walls and moats
represent chains of mountains and the cosmic ocean. The short dimensions of the
vast compound are precisely aligned along a north-south axis, while the
east-west axis has been deliberately diverted 0.75 degrees south of east and
north of west, seemingly in order to give observers a three day anticipation of
the spring equinox.

Unlike other temples at Angkor, Ta Prohm has been left as
it was found, preserved as an example of what a tropical forest will do to an
architectural monument when the protective hands of humans are withdrawn. Ta
Prohm's walls, roofs, chambers and courtyards have been sufficiently repaired
to stop further deterioration and the inner sanctuary has been cleared of
bushes and thick undergrowth. But the temple itself has been left in the
stranglehold of trees. Having planted themselves centuries ago, the tree's
serpentine roots pry apart the ancient stones and their immense trunks straddle
the once bustling Buddhist temple. Built in the later part of the 12th century
by Jayavarman VII, Ta Prohm is the terrestrial counterpart of the star Eta
Draconis the Draco constellation.

During half-millennia of Khmer occupation, the city of
Angkor became a pilgrimage destination of importance throughout Southeastern
Asia. Sacked by the Thais in 1431 and abandoned in 1432, Angkor was forgotten
for a few centuries. Wandering Buddhist monks passing through the dense jungles
occasionally came upon the awesome ruins. Recognizing the sacred nature of the
temples but ignorant of their origins they invented fables about the mysterious
sanctuaries, saying they had been built by the gods in a far ancient time.
Centuries passed, these fables became legends, and pilgrims from the distant
reaches of Asia sought out the mystic city of the gods. A few adventurous
European travelers knew of the ruins and stories circulated in antiquarian circles
of a strange city lost in the jungles. Most people believed the stories to be
nothing more than legend however, until the French explorer Henri Mouhot
brought Angkor to the world's attention in 1860. The French people were
enchanted with the ancient city and beginning in 1908 conducted an extensive
restoration project. The restoration has continued to the present day,
excepting periods in the 70's and 80's when military fighting prevented
archaeologists from living near the ruins.

Orthodox archaeologists sometimes interpret the temples
of the Angkor complex as tombs of megalomaniacal kings yet in reality those
kings designed and constructed the temples as a form of service to both god and
their own subjects. The temples were places not for the worship of the kings
but rather for the worship of god. Precisely aligned with the stars,
constructed as vast three dimensional meditational forms and adorned with
stunningly beautiful religious art, the Angkor temples were instruments for
assisting humans in their realization of the divine.

Jayavaram VII, spoke of his intentions in erecting
temples as being "full of deep sympathy for the good of the world,
so as to bestow on men the ambrosia of remedies to win them immortality…. By
virtue of these good works would that I might rescue all those who are
struggling in the ocean of existence."

An Entrance At Angkot Wat

Built between roughly A.D. 1113 and 1150, and
encompassing an area of about 500 acres (200 hectares), Angkor Wat is one of
the largest religious monuments ever constructed. Its name means “temple city.”

Originally built as a Hindu temple dedicated to the god
Vishnu, it was converted into a Buddhist temple in the 14th century, and
statues of Buddha were added to its already rich artwork.

Its 213-foot-tall (65 meters) central tower is surrounded
by four smaller towers and a series of enclosure walls, a layout that recreates
the image of Mount Meru, a legendary place in Hindu mythology that is said to
lie beyond the Himalayas and be the home of the gods.

The city where the
temple was built, Angkor, is located in modern-day Cambodia and was once the
capital of the Khmer Empire. This city contains hundreds of temples. The
population may have been over 1 million people. It was easily the largest city in the world until the Industrial
Revolution.

Recent research using airborne laser scanning
(lidar) has shown that Angkor contains an urban core that could have held
500,000 people and a vast hinterland that could have held many more
inhabitants. Researchers have also identified a ‘lost’ city called Mahendraparvata, which is
located about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Angkor Wat.

Angkor Wat itself is surrounded by a 650-foot-wide (200
m) moat that encompasses a perimeter of more than 3 miles (5 km). This moat is
13 feet deep (4 m) and would have helped stabilize the temple’s foundation,
preventing groundwater from rising too high or falling too low.

Angkor Wat’s main entrance was to the west (a direction
associated with Vishnu) across a stone causeway, with guardian lions marking
the way. To the east of the temple was a second, more modest,
entrance.

The heart of the
temple was the central tower, entered by way of a steep staircase, a statue of
Vishnu at top. This tower “was at once the symbolic center of the nation and
the actual center where secular and sacred power joined forces,” writes
researcher Eleanor Mannikka in the book "Angkor: Celestial Temples of
the Khmer Empire"
(Abbeville Press, 2002). “From that unparalleled space, Vishnu and the king
ruled over the Khmer people.”

Hidden paintings have
recently been discovered in the central tower. One chamber in the tower has a scene showing a
traditional Khmer musical ensemble known as the pinpeat, which is made up of
different gongs, xylophones, wind instruments and other percussion instruments.
In the same chamber, there's also an intricate scene featuring people riding
horses between two structures, which might be temples. These two paintings
are among 200 that have been recently been
discovered in Angkor Wat.

The builder of Angkor
Wat was a king named Suryavarman II. A usurper, he came to power in his teenage
years by killing his great uncle, Dharanindravarman I, while he was riding an
elephant. An inscription says that Suryavarman killed the man “as Garuda [a
mythical bird] on a mountain ledge would kill a serpent.”

Suryavarman’s bloodlust would continue into his rule; he
launched attacks into Vietnam in an effort to gain control over the territory.
He also made peaceful diplomatic advances, re-opening relations which China.

He venerated the god Vishnu, a deity often depicted as a
protector, and installed a statue of the god in Angkor Wat’s central tower.
This devotion can also be seen in one of the most remarkable reliefs at Angkor
Wat, located in the southeast of the temple. The relief shows a chapter in the
Hindu story of creation known as the “churning of the sea of milk.”

As archaeologist
Michael Coe writes, the relief “describes how the devas (gods) and the asuras (demons) churned the ocean under the aegis
of Vishnu, to produce the divine elixir of immortality,” ("Angkor and the Khmer
Civilization,"
Thames & Hudson, 2003). Scholars consider this relief to be one of the
finest art pieces at Angkor Wat.

Suryavarman’s devotion
to Vishnu is also shown in the posthumous name he was given, “Paramavishnuloka”
which, according to researcher Hélène Legendre-De Koninck, means “he who is in
the supreme abode of Vishnu.” ("Angkor Wat: A Royal Temple," VDG, 2001).

Building Angkor Wat was an enormous undertaking that
involved quarrying, careful artistic work and lots of digging. To create the
moat around the temple, 1.5 million cubic meters (53 million cubic feet) of
sand and silt were moved, a task that would have required thousands of people
working at one time.

The buildings at
Angkor Wat posed their own challenges. To support them a tough material called
laterite was used, which in turn was encased with softer sandstone that was
used for carving the reliefs. These sandstone blocks were quarried at the Kulen
Hills, about 18 miles (30 km) to the north. Recent research proves that they were transported to
the site by a series of canals.

Beneath the central tower was a shaft that leads to a
chamber where, in 1934, archaeologists found “two pieces of crystal and two
gold leaves far beneath where the Vishnu statue must have been,” Coe writes,
adding that deposits like these “spiritually ‘energized’ a temple, much as a
battery will provide power to a portable electronic device.”

Although Angkor Wat is dedicated to Vishnu, the full
purpose of the temple is still debated. One question is whether the ashes of
Suryavarman II were interred in the monument, perhaps in the same chamber where
the deposits were found. If that were the case it would give the temple a
funerary meaning.

Eleanor Mannikka has noted that Angkor Wat is located at
13.41 degrees north in latitude and that the north-south axis of the central
tower’s chamber is 13.43 cubits long. This, Mannikka believes, is not an
accident. “In the central sanctuary, Vishnu is not only placed at the latitude
of Angkor Wat, he is also placed along the axis of the earth,” she writes,
pointing out that the Khmer knew the Earth was round.

In addition, in her writing, Mannikka notes a dozen lunar
alignments with Angkor Wat’s towers, suggesting that it served an important
astronomical role. “During the long and clear Cambodian nights, when the stars
filled every inch of the black sky, the astronomer-priests stood on the long
western causeway ... and recorded the movements of the moon against the
towers in the top two galleries of the temple.”